1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for achieving a wear resistant translucent surface on surface elements with a decorative upper surface of which the decorative elements have an considerably improved matching of the dxc3xa9cor between adjacent surface elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Products clad with thermosetting laminate is common in many areas nowadays. They are mostly used where the demands on abrasion resistance are high, and furthermore where resistance to different chemicals and moisture is desired. As examples of such products floors, floor skirtings, table tops, work tops and wall panels can be mentioned.
The thermosetting laminate most often consist of a number of base sheets with a decor sheet placed closest to the surface. The decor sheet can be provided with a pattern by desire. Common patterns usually visualise different kinds of wood or mineral such as marble and granite.
One common pattern on floor elements is the rod pattern where two or more rows of rods of, for example wood, is simulated in the decor.
The traditional thermosetting laminate manufacturing includes a number of steps which will result in a random matching tolerance of up to xc2x15 mm, which is considered to great. The steps included in the manufacturing of a laminate floor is; printing decor on a paper of xcex1-cellulose, impregnating the decorative paper with melamine-formaldehyde resin, drying the decorative paper, laminating the decorative paper under heat and pressure together with similarly treated supporting papers, applying the decorative laminate on a carrier and finally sawing and milling the carrier to the desired format. All these steps in the manufacturing will cause a change in format on the decor paper. It will therefore be practically impossible to achieve a desired match of patterns between the elements of a without causing great amounts of wasted laminate. The thermosetting laminate is a rather costly part of a laminate floor.
It has, through the present invention, been made possible to overcome the above mentioned problems and a surface element with a decorative surface where the decorative pattern between different surface elements is matching has been obtained. The invention relates to a process for achieving dxc3xa9cor on surface elements which comprises a decorative upper layer and a supporting core.
The surface elements may be used as floor, wall or ceiling boards. The surface elements are suitably manufactured through the following process;
i) A supporting core with a desired format is manufactured and provided with an upper side and a lower side.
ii) The upper side of the supporting core is then provided with a decor, by for example printing. The dxc3xa9cor is positioned after a predetermined fixing point on the supporting core.
iii) The upper side of the supporting core is then provided with a protecting, at least partly translucent, wear layer by for example spray coating, roller coating, curtain coating and immersion coating or by being provided with one or more sheets of xcex1-cellulose impregnated with thermosetting resin or lacquer.
The dxc3xa9cor is preferably achieved by digitisation of an actual archetype or by partly or completely being created in a digital media. The digitised dxc3xa9cor is preferably stored digitally in order to be used as a control function and original, together with control programs and selection parameters, when printing the dxc3xa9cor.
The dimensions of the surface to be covered by surface elements is suitably entered into the terminal and support programs calculates an installation pattern. The installation pattern calculation is suitably also used for printing an assembly instruction. In order to visualise the selection the installation pattern calculation is possibly used for printing a miniaturised copy of the calculated installation with the selected pattern and dxc3xa9cor. The dimensions of the surface to be covered by surface elements is suitably entered into the terminal and that that support programs further calculates dxc3xa9cor and segmentation pattern matching between the surface elements.
The selections is preferably also used, together with support programs for controlling further steps in the manufacturing procedure selected from the group; identification marking, positioning marking, packaging, lacquering, surface embossing, storing and delivery logistics.
An algorithm is suitably used for guiding the positioning of the dxc3xa9cor segments and segmentation pattern so that a dxc3xa9cor segment from one surface element may continue on an adjoining surface element. The control program is suitably used, together with dxc3xa9cor data and selection parameters, for applying matching identification on the surface elements.
Thus, the invention relates to a process for achieving a wear resistant translucent surface on surface elements which comprises a decorative upper layer and a supporting core. The invention is characterised in that a number of layers of UV- or electron-beam curing lacquer are applied on a decorative surface, through a process comprising the steps;
i) A base layer of lacquer is applied to a surface weight of 5-50 g/m2.
ii) Hard particles with an average particle size in the range 10-150 xcexcm are then sprinkled to an amount of 1-40 g/m2 on the still wet lacquer.
iii) The applied layer of lacquer is then cured to a desired viscosity.
iv) A covering layer of lacquer is then applied to a surface weight of 5-150 g/m2.
v) The applied layer of lacquer is then cured to a desired viscosity whereupon,
vi) a topcoat layer of lacquer with an additive of 5-35% of hard particles with an average size in the range 50 nm-30 xcexcm is applied to a surface weight of 2-20 g/2.
The applied layers of lacquer are cured to a desired final viscosity.
The lacquer is suitably a UV or electron beam curing acrylic, epoxy or maleimide lacquer. The lacquer does suitably comprise a reaction mechanism selected from the group; cationic, free-radical, and thiol-ene, and is preferably photo initiator free.